Presence of carbamazepine,naproxen, and ibuprofen in wastewater from northern Tunisia

We investigated the occurrence of three pharmaceutical residues in four wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) from northern Tunisia. The selected compounds were carbamazepine, naproxen, and ibuprofen; they are among the most commonly prescribed and widely used pharmaceutical agents worldwide. Samples (200?mL) were pre-concentrated using the solid phase extraction (SPE) enrichment procedure and the analysis of the pharmaceuticals was performed with high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC-UV). The overall procedure provided limits of detection (LOD) lower than 0.5 µg.L^?1and recoveries of 78–97%. For the carbamazepine compound, the mean concentrations were 60.58, 93.19, and 132 µg.L^?1 for the Bizerte, Jendouba, and Tunis WWTPs, respectively. This pharmaceutical was not detected in the Beja WWTPs. Naproxen and ibuprofens were not detected in the Jendouba WWTP but were found in the three other WWTPs with concentrations ranging from 2.94 to 36.17 µg.L^?1 and from 8.02 to 43.22 µg.L^?1, respectively. From the obtained data, it seems that these WWTPs are not able to eliminate this kind of micro-pollutants.     

Mapping Social Networks for Performance Evaluation of Irrigation Water Management in Dry Areas

Collaboration between actors is an important determinant of water governance, particularly in developing countries suffering from lack of institutional and organizational performances for water management. The objective of this paper is to use the social network (SN) concept in bringing depth to the understanding of local irrigation governance in three irrigated schemes located in dry regions of southern Tunisia. Local stakeholders in the considered schemes interact around different water-related issues. These include authorizations for access to water, extension services for irrigated crops, training on the use of irrigation technologies, and finance and subsidies of irrigation water saving equipment. We considered each of these types of interactions as different tie and we mapped social networks around each of them. For each network, actors’ densities, frequencies, and weight were reported. The results were revealing that better performances of water management are observed in areas with high SN density and high centrality of water users’ associations. The relative “weights” of actors in the three considered areas were significantly different, indicating that the application of a standard decentralization process of irrigation water may result in different local organizational arrangements, depending on patterns of social interactions.     

Prenatal diagnosis of Crigler–Najjar syndrome type I by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP)

Crigler–Najjar syndrome type I (CN-I) is a rare and severe inherited disorder of bilirubin metabolism, caused by the total deficiency of bilirubin-UDP-glucuronosyltransferase (UGT) activity. Enzymatic diagnosis cannot be performed in chorionic villi or amniocytes as UGT is not active in these tissues. The cloning of the UGT1 gene and the identification of disease-causing mutations have led to the possibility of performing DNA-based diagnosis. Here we report DNA-based prenatal diagnosis of CN-I in two Tunisian families in whom CN-I patients were diagnosed. As we had previously shown that CN-I was, in Tunisia, associated with homozygosity for the Q357R mutation within the UGT1 gene, we were able to detect this mutation in both families and to show that it was easily recognized by single-strand conformation polymorphism (SSCP) analysis. In both cases, SSCP analysis of fetal DNA showed that the fetus was heterozygous for the Q357R mutation. In one family, the pregnancy was carried to term and a healthy baby was born, whereas, in the other family, the pregnancy is still continuing. Thus the prenatal diagnosis of CN-I is possible, provided disease-causing mutations have been identified. SSCP analysis of DNA prepared either from amniocytes or from chorionic villi is a simple, reliable and fast method for prenatal diagnosis. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Pyrolysis of lemon peel waste in a fixed-bed reactor and characterization of innovative pyrolytic products

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - Lemon peel waste (LPW) were pyrolysed in a laboratory fixed-bed reactor at final temperature of 300 °C, 400 °C and...     

Physicochemical and compositional analyses of household solid wastes: opportunities for bioenergy production and sustainable waste management in Ethiopia

Journal of Material Cycles and Waste Management - This study aimed to determine the quantity and quality of source separated organic household solid waste (SSOHSW) generation in Addis Ababa,...